Structural differences in parent and child reports of children's symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Abstract

Two cohorts of public elementary school children and their parents (assessed 3 years apart) completed child and parent forms of the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) and the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS). Assessments were conducted twice, once during the fall (N = 562) and again during the spring (N = 630) of the 6th grade. Factor analyses revealed 3 factors for each measure. Two of the 3 parent CDI factors manifested some degree of congruence with their counterparts from the child CDI. Similarly, 2 of the 3 RCMAS factors were somewhat congruent across informant types. Differences between parent and child factor structures suggest that parents' and children's reports focus on somewhat different aspects of child psychopathology, and they can make qualitatively different contributions to the multiaxial assessment of children.